Her Greatest Weakness
by dorkofyourdreams
Summary: A small story, featuring love and loss.
1. Prologue

**This idea's been floating around in my head for a while, ever since I finished Fable II actually. It's been a while… I think I finished that game last year… XD Anyways, this isn't going to be a really long story or anything. It isn't going to be focussing a whole lot on the main, action part of the game, it's a love story. This is the prologue, which is why it's so short. Hopefully the chapters will be a lot larger than this but… I hope you enjoy this first part anyways :)**

It was really going to take some getting used to, this whole Bowerstone business. The city had gotten bigger since she'd seen it last. There seemed to be twice as many people, twice as many guards, twice as many of…everything. As she walked through the city, people from stalls beckoned to her, urging her to buy their products.

Despite just how much had changed, she did remember some of it. Slowly but surely, she recalled memories from her childhood. People stumbling out of the tavern, delicious smells wafting from the pie stall, bandits…

…Bandits?...

The owner of the potions store ran out.

"Come back you bandit scum!" He waved his broom in the air menacingly at the direction that the bandit ran to.

Without even thinking, Sparrow took off after the bandit. He was fast, for any normal human, but she knew that he was no match for her hero's speed. He travelled down a dirt pathway to the river, where he stood, panting for air. As she got closer, he took notice of her, promptly jumped into the river, and swam away from her. In turn, she followed him into the river.

Pulling herself up out of the water, she saw the thief run up the steps, into the heart of Bowerstone. She still ran, not seeing anybody around her, except for her target. Before she knew what was going on, suddenly Sparrow's face was pressed into the ground. Mere moments later, she observed that the rest of her body was not on the ground. Putting two and two together, she jumped up, embarrassed.

"Oh, I'm so sorry sir. I wasn't watching…" The man that she had taken out began to shift, and he raised his head.

"hnghh?" He groaned. Reaching down a hand, she pulled him up from the ground. He put his right hand on his temple, softly massaging the sore spot on his head.

"Are you alright?" Sparrow implored. He slowly nodded his head in response as his eyes searched her face. She avoided looking at him, and instead opted to stare at the ground, and the area beside his face instead. Damn! She had lost the trail of the bandit.

"Quite." Her head shot back to him as she looking at his face for the first time.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm quite alright, thank you." The man smiled at her, which she returned.

"That is… good." Said Sparrow awkwardly. She was not very good at socializing with people, particularly those that she had only known for a minute or two. She began rubbing her hands uncomfortably. Where was she supposed to put them? The man stuck his hand out between the two of them.

"My name's Alex, it's nice to meet you." Suddenly she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It was the bandit!

"It was nice meeting you, Alex, bye!" Sparrow spat out before she ran to catch the bandit, bumping her shoulder into Alex's as she did.

As Alex watched her run away, he put his outstretched hand on the back of his neck. He gave an amused smile and shook his head as he began walking to the bar.

"Nice to meet you too…" He muttered to himself as he began to laugh, picked up his hat off the ground, brushed it off, and placed it back onto his head.


	2. Chapter 1

**Well this is much more… Much more inner dialogue than I had initially anticipated this story to be. Uhh so yeah… Here's the first chapter of this love story. I hope that somebody enjoys this idea **

**Oh! And if I didn't make it clear enough in the fic when this takes place in the game, this is right before you're supposed to accompany Hammer in the cave thing. This is when you have to impress her father with how famous you are. I haven't played the game in a long time, and I couldn't find a game script, and I didn't want to have to replay it so please forgive my approximate things of what the characters said. Anyways, I hope that this is much better than the prologue. It's a lot longer, at least. **

It was her last quest.

The last one that she needed to complete so she would be famous enough to be trusted by the Abbot in Oakfield.

The instructions given were quite simple: go to a statue, a little bit out of the city. She accepted it, and made her way to the designated rendezvous area. Upon arriving there, she came across an odd scene. A translucent figure of a girl was standing near the statue; she was crying. Sensing that as odd as it was, it was really where she was supposed to go. She walked to the figure. Turning to her, it wiped its eyes.

"Can… Can you really see me?" She questioned in disbelief. Sparrow nodded. The girl beamed at her. "That's wonderful! Say, would you be willing to do a favour for me?" Knowing that she really needed the renown from finishing a quest in order to be allowed to be the escort, she nodded again.

The girl went on to explain that once she had been in love with a man named Alex. They were to be married. All of the plans had been made, and it seemed that everything was going the way it was supposed to be. It did not turn out, though, as he never showed up, leaving her at the alter. She, being so broken-hearted, killed herself. Which brought about the issue that she wanted Sparrow to take care of: revenge.

"I want you to do the same thing to him as he did to me. Now, you will have to get him to fall in love with you, but that shouldn't be too hard. Then, give this note to him!" The girl pulled out a note from Avo knows where in her translucent body. Sparrow tucked it into her pocket. The ghost seemed very obsessed with this, but regardless, Sparrow did feel a bit of sympathy towards her. It must have been so disappointing.

"I'm really sorry that this happened to you." The girl looked at her, and a small smile formed on her face.

"I'll be okay, as long as Alex pays for what he did." Sparrow bit her lip and nodded. Clearly, this was why her ghost had not passed on, and continued to haunt the world. "He should be somewhere near the Clock Tower in Bowerstone. And good luck to you!" Shaking her head, Sparrow turned and went back the way she came.

Sparrow was surprised that it wasn't harder, finding Alex in Bowerstone. She found him near the Clock Tower, which she really shouldn't have been surprised about. She recognized him by the hat that he was wearing- which the ghost assured her that he would be wearing. The first thing that she noticed about him, as she casually glanced at him from across the square, was that he was not very… _attractive_.

Now, that very well may have been her thoughts. Maybe the ghost, when she was alive, had thought that Alex was the most handsome man in all of Albion. But as Sparrow looked at him now, she didn't really see what was so special about him. Shrugging her shoulders to nobody but herself, she began to walk over to where he was standing. No time like the present start to this quest so she could finish it.

As she got closer to the man, though, she noticed that his face was extremely familiar. He had wispy, mousey-coloured hair that framed his face, and a funny little hat upon his head. He stood around an inch shorter than her, and he was quite skinny.

Suddenly his eyes found her, and she felt them boring into her. Her heart began to pound with nervousness. Avo, how was she supposed to do this? She could hardly speak to strangers, let alone seduce them.

"Aren't you that woman from a couple of days ago?" Oh Avo, that's who he was… What was his name again? A-Alex! Yes, that was it!

"Y-yes." She abruptly said, feeling a blush capture her cheeks and face as she remembered the event. "I-I'm very… uh… sorry about- I don't usually… I'm usually more careful." My, this was going worse than she had expected. She tried to convince herself that things could be worse, and she was doing surprisingly well for someone who preferred the safe lone company of herself. She made the mistake of looking at his face, which was home to friendly eyes and an amused smile, which made her feel like even more of a fool inside.

"It's quite alright, were you able to catch him at least?" Her mind went blank as she struggled to come up with an answer. She felt her breathing coming in short, shallow breaths and she tried to inconspicuously wipe her sweaty palms on the legs of her pants. She felt her stomach churn and suddenly she just wanted to run away and empty the contents of her stomach into the river.

"No." She breathed out the word at last. She opted to look down at her feet. Maybe if she wasn't looking at him, she would be able to function like a normal person. There was a thick, heavy silence that hung in the air between them.

Sparrow put her hand in her pocket, not knowing what to do when she felt the note. The note. Taking a subtle deep breath, she closed her eyes for a split second to concentrate. This was just a quest. This should be much easier than killing bandits or hobbes or anything of that sort. There was no danger of her dying, or wounded. Attempting to throw away her nervousness, she broke the silence.

"H-how would you like to accompany me to watch the sunset tonight at the Clock Tower?" She forced the words to ease out of her mouth slowly. He smiled at her. "As a… As a sort of…" She was failing. She was losing her words and courage with each second.

"I would love to… What's your name?" He asked. "You ran off so quickly I wasn't able to catch it."

"Most call me Sparrow." She replied, knowing full well that it wasn't her real name, the one her parents had given her. It had been so long that she wasn't quite sure she could remember her real name. She could only remember Sparrow.

"Sparrow… How does a person get a name like that?" He inquired. She felt her breath catch in her throat. It wasn't like he knew. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know about her…

"My sister gave it to me." She quickly said, hoping to just move on from this topic.

"Well, Sparrow, you seem like an interesting person, and I'd love to get to know you better." She couldn't breath. How on earth did he find her interesting? She was a nervous wreck that could hardly put two words together without wanting to throw up. She could take on an army of bandits without flinching and yet… Talking to people, socializing… That made her more terrified than anything else ever would.

"…" There were no words. Her mind was completely blank.

"I'll see you tonight at 7:00, ok?" She could only nod her head in reply.

"S-s-see you then." She forced herself to give a quick smile and she turned and ran away in the other direction.

As she exited Bowerstone, she felt her dog join her at her heels. She stumbled and fell on the path. As she found herself back at the gypsy camp, she doubled over at the entrance and proceeded to throw up. It got all over her shoes, nonetheless.

Avo, how was she going to survive this night?

It could have been worse, Sparrow mused as she sat just outside the gypsy camp. It was past midnight, but she did not feel tired at all. Her dog, Whisper, laid her head on her lap, and she gently petted the beast.

She had met him at the Clock Tower, 7:00 sharp. Alex arrived earlier than she had, which made her a bit flustered before the night had even begun. He did a lot of the talking, and she opted to instead listen to him. Whenever she tried to respond, her speech came out in small bursts with many pauses. Her heart was pounding the entire time she tried. However, when she simply listened to him, she seemed to calm herself.

It was an odd feeling. She had never felt so comfortable in a man's- no, anyone's presence before. Some might have found it strange, that there was really only one of them speaking. If he noticed this, he was an extremely good actor at pretending everything was quite lovely. He never ran out of things to say, words coming out of his mouth constantly.

Things began to take a more personal turn as he began to tell her of his life. He came from a good family, had a happy childhood. He told her of his siblings, and how they all went off to be something great while he had only drifted off to find himself in Bowerstone. He even mentioned his old betrothed, Victoria. She had quickly realized that Victoria was the ghost that had hired her.

Alex told a much different story, speaking of his own cowardice and guilt and shame at what he had done. How he had wished he could go back and prevent her suicide, prevent himself from hurting her so. It was clear to Sparrow that Alex was not the heartless man that Victoria had led her to believe. He was simply afraid of love.

That was something that Sparrow could so identify with that she found herself wondering what she was doing. Why was she wanting to break him so much? When she thought about it, she didn't want to hurt him at all. If anything, she wanted to do the opposite.

The night ended with him taking her hand, and saying he enjoyed her company.

"I've been so afraid of love for a long time because of what happened to Victoria. I think, Sparrow, you are changing my attitudes towards love. I think I'm falling in love with you."

What was there for him to fall in love with?

This was why she was still sitting outside in the middle of the night. She should be sleeping, or practicing with her sword, or something _useful_. All of this was in the back of her mind yet she could not let it go. They hardly knew each other- He hardly knew her. She knew him fairly well, but he did not have a clue about her.

She could list off the names of all of his relatives, with an anecdote for each of them. She could say the names of his favourite alcohol, as well as how much liquor he could hold. She knew his dream of owning his own shop and finally being a success in his family, so he could finally make his parents proud.

But Sparrow… She hardly said a word all night. What could she say? She was only calm when she listened to him, but when she tried to articulate a response her mind went blank and she wanted to puke. How could he say he was in love with her?

This should have been a good sign. She break his heart so swiftly. A simple sentence could send him into a dark depression, similar to the one he had experienced after Victoria's death. Sparrow wasn't sure she could do to him. As much as she couldn't understand why he claimed to love her, she knew that there were feelings that she held for him.

Perhaps it was the way his eyes twinkled when he spoke of his dreams, or the way he could talk on and on with no pause. He was so different from her, yet she could empathize with him so much.

Maybe she loved him. It was hard to say for certain. Regardless of whether or not it was love, there was something there.


End file.
